


I'll speak a little louder, I'll even shout

by marginaliana



Series: a ficlet for every GT episode [1]
Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF
Genre: 70s references, I just want to have that on the record, Leather, M/M, The Grand Tour: s01 e01, but I don't, you would be forgiven for thinking I actually like Fleetwood Mac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8751934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: A leather jacket and some silver bracelets. (Inspired by the review of the M2.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wyvernchick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernchick/gifts).



> Many thanks to Birdie, my fab beta.

It was when James found himself biting his bottom lip for the tenth time that he began to realize he might have a problem. 

It had developed as a defense mechanism somewhere in his twenties. If he was biting his lip he couldn't blurt out what he was thinking, especially when what he was thinking was something inappropriately sexual. By now it was automatic, so automatic that he sometimes only even discovered what he was thinking when he felt the edge of his teeth catch at his lip.

They were filming various things on the new track today; it was allegedly for efficiency's sake, doing it all at once, but James knew there was a bit of sentimentality to the choice as well. They all wanted to be there to break it in, even Wilman, who had managed to procure something not unlike their old Spitfire table and was now lounging beside it at the edge of the start line, drinking from a mug of crap tea and looking intensely pleased with himself. Richard was there, too, talking into his phone. 

Jeremy had just finished his shoot with the M2 for the opening episode and was conferring with the director. And James was… biting his lip. 

Because Jeremy looked fucking amazing. James couldn't stop looking at him, couldn't stop wondering what it was that drew his eye. 

It wasn't just the pleasure of filming going well, of producing something good, of working together as easily as ever. It wasn't just the look of astonished happiness that Jeremy nearly always wore these days, as if he still couldn't quite believe that they'd all chosen to follow him. It wasn't just that Jeremy seemed lighter now somehow, as if he'd shed something he'd been carrying around for a long time.

It was, if James were to be completely honest with himself, about the jacket.

You couldn't be a biker without some appreciation for leather, though for some it was more practical than aesthetic. With James it was a bit of both, but the aesthetic was certainly winning out at the moment. Jeremy didn't _need_ a leather jacket for driving around in a climate-controlled car any more than he _needed_ to drag a gigantic tent around the entire fucking world, but that had never stopped him.

He looked just a little bit ridiculous – those silver bracelets, Jesus, what did he think this was, 1976? – but the trouble was that Jeremy made ridiculous look absolutely enchanting.

" _May_ ," Jeremy said, sounding exasperated, and James jerked his gaze up to Jeremy's face from his chest, flushing red with the realization that he'd been staring.

"What, for fuck's sake?" he snapped. 

"Lunch," Jeremy said. "Or shall I have yours?"

"Swine," said James. "As if you need two lunches." He indicated Jeremy's middle with the tip of his head. Truth be told, he rather liked the paunch that Jeremy was sporting these days – it was a pleasant change from the thinness of his body and his face in the few months immediately post-fracas, the time when his clothes had hung loose on his frame. James wanted to run his hands up over Jeremy's stomach, feel the leather soft as butter under his hands and Jeremy softer beneath it.

Christ, he was biting his lip again. Perhaps if he stuffed a sandwich in his mouth that would be sufficient distraction.

They all crowded around the table and had at it, and for a while James was able to occupy himself with the usual genial lunchtime arguments. But then it was Richard's turn out on the track and James was left with Jeremy, this time alone. Ostensibly Jeremy was responding to emails and James was doing the crossword – but truth be told, Jeremy was mainly watching Richard thrash his car around the track and James was mainly watching Jeremy.

He couldn't get over the silver bracelets. Where had Jeremy even got them – some sort of Stevie Nicks closeout sale? But they glinted in the sunlight, little darts of silver against the warm tan of Jeremy's wrists. James wanted to press his face where leather and skin met, get one of those bracelets between his teeth and suck at Jeremy's pulse point. 

He realized that his thoughts were tending dangerously close to poetic and that the biting of the bottom lip had become, frankly, more like gnawing. 

"Look, I know it's ridiculous," Jeremy said abruptly. James jerked his head up.

"Pardon?"

"I know I look like a sad old man who can't even call himself an aging rocker since he wasn't a rocker in the first place, but I bloody well like this jacket, so you can just stop looking at me like that, all right?"

James swallowed. There was something painfully honest in Jeremy's voice – the sort of honesty that he hadn't used to allow himself to display. The sort of honesty that they could only have now because of everything that had come before. And somehow James knew that he just couldn't let Jeremy go on thinking that James was laughing at him. Even if he had to make a fool of himself instead. 

_What a sentimental ass I've become,_ James thought. He said, quietly, "It's not because I think you look ridiculous."

"No?" Jeremy said. He sounded skeptical. 

"No," said James. He let his eyes rake down over Jeremy's chest and then up again so that there could be no mistaking his meaning.

Jeremy's cheeks went pink. "You are taking the piss," he said flatly.

"Amazingly, for once I'm not," said James. His voice didn't even shake. "Doesn't mean you have to do anything about it, mind. But I thought you ought to know." He went bloody-mindedly back to the crossword, though it was more 'staring blindly at' than 'solving.' _At least it isn't as if he's going to fire me,_ he thought. Perhaps if he didn't look up again they could even pass all of this off as a post-lunch-dozing dream.

They sat in silence for at least three minutes before Jeremy said, "And what if I did?"

James blinked. "Pardon?" he said again, head lifting despite his earlier resolution. 

But Jeremy wasn't looking at him – was staring out across the track to where Richard was now, apparently, attempting to powerslide. "What if I did want to do something about it?" he said. 

"I'd wonder if you'd been replaced by a space alien," said James, because when he'd considered it – which wasn't often – the idea that Jeremy might actually be interested had ranked somewhere below 'Richard might spontaneously decide to eat fish' on the probability scale. 

Jeremy's jaw was set, though, in the way that meant stubbornness, that meant he was serious. James felt a surge of something alarmingly like hope. "I'd tell you to come by mine tomorrow, since we have the day off," he said. "We could talk about it then. And—" He bit his lip again, then reached out and touched Jeremy's sleeve, just lightly. "I'd tell you to wear that jacket."


End file.
